Middlesbrough: Children as young as nine are being treated for heroin addiction. Teesside has four times as many people under 20 receiving treatment for drug addiction as the national average.

Hartlepool: Children as young as 10 have been caught with alcohol by police during patrols over four consecutive Friday nights.

Stockton: Control your children or face police action, about 20 families have been told after disturbances involving 100 teenage drinkers in Ropner Park last Sunday night.

Carlisle: City dwellers are to be consulted about ideas for council spending, including closed-circuit television monitoring, new street lights and sports facilities.

Barrow: DNA kits are being distributed to staff working on trains running to Carlisle in an attempt to gather evidence on passengers who spit at them.

Keswick: Residents have been urged by police to be wary of doorstep salesmen after one took an elderly woman to her bank several times to withdraw money for an alarm not yet installed.

Sunderland: Football hooligans will be targeted by a new police unit out to obtain more banning orders, stop troublemakers travelling to the Euro 2004 championships in Portugal and prevent a repeat of the trouble at the Stadium of Light earlier this year.

Doxford Park: Free access to computers, the internet, email and learning opportunities has been made available at the Electronic Village Hall.

Fulwell: Residents are being urged by the National Blood Service to give the gift of life at a donor session in the Methodist church on Dovedale Road on Wednesday between 10am and 1pm.

Jarrow: Shelagh Potter, headteacher at the troubled Jarrow School, will not be back next term, South Tyneside Council has revealed. Diana Kinnaird, director of the South Tyneside education action zone, will take over until a permanent replacement is found.

South Shields: Cross-Tyne ferry services are to be cut due to falling passenger numbers. From February 1 the last ferry will leave at 8.30pm. Other cuts will hit Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday services.

Newcastle: Law firm Mark Gilbert Morse has been accused of "pure greed" by MP Kevan Jones. Speaking in Parliament he urged the firm to repay some of the fees it had charged for handling claims for miners suffering from lung disease.

COUNTY DURHAM

Barnard Castle: Trustees aiming to transform 150-year-old Witham Hall will seek National Lottery funding to help meet the £6m bill.

Seaham: Customers who cause trouble in any of five popular pubs in the town over the festive period face a minimum one-year ban from all of them under a police-backed scheme.

Darlington: Parking charges could rise if the Department of Transport decides the town is one of the two in England to be picked to benefit from a £7.5m sustainable transport initiative.

NORTH YORKSHIRE

Fylingdales: A Government agreement with the US allowing an upgrade of radar at the RAF base sparked an emergency meeting of the North York Moors National Park Authority as members fear that missile interceptors may yet be installed there.

York: A Jaguar XJS slid into the River Ouse as its architect owner tried to turn on an icy South Esplanade on Monday. The driver escaped from the car as it sank and was pulled from the river by passers-by.

Barrowby: Four lots of land at Rooksfield Farm fetched prices between £3012 and £8507 per acre, well ahead of what was expected at auction in Kirkby Overblow.

Alnwick: Northumberland should be governed by two local authorities rather than one, district councillors have decided. Many councillors expressed anger that there was no three-council option.

Berwick: One NorthEast has been challenged about its plans for tourism by MP Alan Beith. He is concerned that small businesses have not been consulted about the impending demise of Northumbria Tourist Board.

Craster: The Bark Pots tea room and gift shop will close its doors for good next Sunday. Fyona Robson, who has run the venture with her husband Michael since 1978, is going into hospital for an operation and afterwards they intend to concentrate on their holiday homes business.